Pro-environmental behavior of university students: Application of protection motivation theory

Environmental quality strongly depends on the human behavior patterns. University students as a part of the young people of the community endure the burden of the past and current carelessness towards the environment. At the same time, they are the significant people who gain technical knowledge essential for advancing suitable solutions to change environmental behavior. Therefore, developing scientific knowledge on what inspire them to behave pro-environmentally is a significant area of concern that has practicable usages for moving on the way a sustainable future. In an examination of pro-environmentally related behavior, we used the protection motivation theory as a framework for explaining pro-environmental behavior of a sample of 310 Iranian students. Analysis indicated that the protection motivation theory constructs along with environmental attitude are able for explaining a significant portion of the variance in pro-environmental behavior. Based on the results, environmental attitude, self-efficacy, perceived costs of pro-environmental behavior and perceived intrinsic and extrinsic rewards of current environmentally unfriendly behaviors were the direct determinants of pro-environmental behavior, while rewards indirectly influenced pro-environmental behavior via environmental attitude and response costs. Also, response efficacy through self-efficacy had an indirect influence on pro-environmental behavior. Overall, considering the importance of environmental attitudes and self-efficacy, using measures and incentives to improve students' attitude on the necessity of environmental protection and improving their sense of self-efficacy can help increase the likelihood of pro-environmental behaviors in community. (C) 2020 Published by Elsevier B.V.